The Effect of an Aging Suit on Young and Middle-Aged Adults’ Attitudes Toward Older Adults

Background: Ageism, a type of discrimination based on a person’s age, can lead to negative attitudes, intolerance, and judgment towards older adults. With the increase of older adults in society, understanding the correlates of negative attitudes becomes increasingly important. The use of aging simulation (the action of imitating or pretending to be an older adult) is one largely unexplored intervention for reducing ageist attitudes. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of an aging suit on the attitudes of young and middle-aged adults toward older adults. We hypothesized that after performing senior fitness tests in an aging suit, young and middle-aged adults would have more positive attitudes towards older adults. Methodology: Subjects consisted of 18 males and 41 females between the ages of 18-59 years. All assessments took place in the Exercise Science Research Center at the University of Arkansas. Upon arrival, each participant took The Aging Semantic Differential (ASD), donned the Gerontological Test (GERT) Suit, to simulate aging, participated in senior fitness tests, and concluded by removing the GERT aging suit and retaking the ASD. A dependent samples t-test was used to compare the ASD scores (dependent variable) pre-aging suit and post-aging suit. Between subject factors of gender, prior fitness test experience, and professional experience working with older adults were also analyzed. Results: There were no significant differences on attitudes towards older adults after wearing the GERT aging suit compared to pre-test scores (p=.36). The mean ASD scores pre-aging suit and post-aging suit were 77.4 and 75.6. There was no group by time interaction for gender (p=.50), prior fitness test experience (p=.91), or professional experience working with older adults (p=.35). The mean age of participants was 28 years. Discussion: The results of this study do not support the hypothesis that attitudes towards older adults would become more positive after wearing the aging suit. The results highlight the need for more studies with a greater sample size and more age variety to clarify a link between an aging suit and an increase in positive attitudes towards older adults. Future studies should also include a comparison of an aging suit (aging simulation) to integrated learning experiences to better clarify the extent to which an aging suit could help increase positive attitudes towards older adults when compared to another intervention method

The Human Rights Case of Persons with Albinism in Uganda

The condition of albinism within the context of Eastern Africa presents a puzzling and troubling question to the human rights community: how does a state protect a marginalized minority that is undefined by human rights statutes? This paper looks into what the specific and unique challenges are facing persons with albinism in Uganda, and how current human rights documents do and do not address those issues. The paper also explores the possible reasons why the issues surrounding albinism are only recently being discussed. The paper incorporates interviews from a variety of relevant authority figures, selected by their work with albinism, disabilities, and/or human rights. The researcher familiarized herself with a broad range of human rights documents, using the most relevant to explain their limitations in addressing the issue of albinism in East Africa. Publications regarding the issues of albinism in recent years were used within the primary stages of the research. They proved less helpful later on, as most available information is regarding the hunting of albino persons in Tanzania, Burundi and the Congo. Persons with albinism are particularly vulnerable in East Africa due to a combination of environmental and sociological factors, which have served to repress this group and prevent mobilization. Since most of the challenges faced by albino persons are not directly caused by their medical condition, it is difficult to define these persons within a specific category. Vulnerable groups such as race categories and minorities are unable to incorporate the biological aspect of albinism. In researching the possibility of fitting albinism under the disability category, the researcher found an interesting discordance between international and domestic disability theory, which prevents albinism from being officially recognized as a disability in Uganda. Most of the problems facing persons with albinism can be linked to a lack of comprehensive and accessible information on albinism that is currently available

Exploration of the Implementation of an Integrated Electronic Laboratory Information Management System on Quality Diagnostics Service Indicators at a County Level Public Hospital in western Kenya.

Underinvestment in pathology and laboratory capacity caused by low visibility in research and in prioritization by public health leaders results in limited effective healthcare coverage and an estimated 1.1 million premature deaths annually in Low-and-Middle-Income Countries. Kenya’s public health laboratories provide a median 41% of the Essential Diagnostic List to their patients and in Kisumu County, as much as 44.2% of the population has little to no access to essential diagnostics. The government of Kisumu implemented the county Health Laboratory Strategic Plan 2018-2022 to address this public health challenge. Little information exists on the effectiveness of these initiatives and the realized impact on laboratory quality diagnostic services in the era of COVID-19. This study explored the implementation of one of the Strategic Plan’s initiatives, an electronic diagnostics data system at a county-level health facility, and the impact that has had on Malaria diagnostics from 2018 to 2022. This study found that the implementation of this electronic data system was not associated with increases in Malaria testing or informed treatment. It found that patients under 5 years old treated for Malaria were 1.07 times more likely to be treated presumptively in 2020 than in 2018. There have been significant decreases in all patients and total tests performed for Malaria since 2018 in spite of a significant Malaria positivity peak in 2020. More research needs to be done on the causes of these decreases and ways in which laboratory test results can better inform provider testing and treatment priorities

A new method for obtaining the star formation law in galaxies

We present a new observational method to evaluate the star formation law as formulated by Schmidt: the power-law expression assumed to relate the rate of star formation in a volume of space to the local total gas volume density. Volume densities in the clouds surrounding an OB association are determined with a simple model which considers atomic hydrogen as a photodissociation product on cloud surfaces. The photodissociating flux incident on the cloud is computed from the far-UV luminosity of the OB association and the geometry. We have applied this "PDR Method" to a sample of star-forming regions in M33 using VLA 21-cm data for the HI and GALEX imagery in the far-UV. It provides an estimate of the total volume density of hydrogen (atomic + molecular) in the gas clouds surrounding the young star cluster. A logarithmic graph of the cluster UV luminosity versus the surrounding gas density is a direct measure of the star formation law. However, this plot is severely affected by observational selection, rendering large areas of the diagram inaccessible to the data. An ordinary least-squares regression fit therefore gives a strongly biased result. Its slope primarily reflects the boundary defined when the 21-cm line becomes optically thick, no longer reliably measuring the HI column density. We use a maximum-likelihood statistical approach which can deal with truncated and skewed data, taking into account the large uncertainties in the derived total gas densities. The exponent we obtain for the Schmidt law in M33 is 1.4 \pm 0.2.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The (In)Visibility of Race/ism in Social Studies Education: Examining Teacher Educators’ Strategies for Addressing Issues of Race/ism with Preservice Teachers

Research highlights that the predominantly white P-12 teaching force in the United States is largely unprepared to teach an increasingly diverse student population about issues of race/ism. This unpreparedness is particularly pertinent in subjects like social studies that are based on understandings of culture and race. Thus, this study seeks to understand how social studies teacher preparation programs are preparing preservice social studies teachers to address and examine issues of race/ism in their practice. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and small stories research, this study utilizes interviews, focus groups, and content analysis of course syllabi to examine social studies teacher educators’ approach to teaching and discussing race/ism with preservice teachers. Through a framework formed out of critical race theory and critical whiteness studies, this study seeks to identify and amplify pedagogical and methodological considerations for the teaching and learning of race/ism in teacher preparation programs so we can move to a space of decentering whiteness in order to reclaim curricular space for marginalized voices, stories, and histories. Findings illuminate: 1) teacher educators’ lived experiences with race and racism foreground the pedagogical strategies they implement around race/ism, 2) the support of the academic community of teacher educators influences their self-efficacy in addressing issues of race/ism, and 3) white privilege influences the way teacher educators decide to engage in topics of race/ism with preservice teachers

The influence of the 1972 statewide extension soybean production practice survey on amounts of staff time planned and expended and clientele contacts, : with selected audiences and teaching methods, fiscal year 1972 and 1975

Information from the 1972 Tennessee Soybean Production Practice Checklist Survey was related to data from the Tennessee Extension Management Information System, TEMIS, (i.e., agent day planned and expended and clientele contacts made) for Fiscal Years 1972 and 1975 to determine whether the survey had influenced agent time planned and expended according to state Extension Supervisory Districts and teach-ing methods. The relation between soybean survey practices and TEMIS primary subjects was found to be acceptable for this study. From the 1972 Tennessee Soybean Production Survey, it was found that the average production in bushels of soybeans per acre was approx-imately 28 bushels per acre for the state (i.e., actually 74 counties), little difference being noted among districts. Soybean producers with larger acreages (i.e., 50 acres or more) showed a tendency to have higher yields. Higher percents of those producing yields of over 28 bushels per acre, the 1972 survey average, used each and all of 12 recommended practices. Recommended practices under the Primary TEMIS Subjects One, Soybean Fertilization and Two, Soybean Pest Control were found to be least used by Tennessee Soybean producers suggesting the need to emphasize them most in Extension\u27s soybean educational program as priority areas. Stronger use areas included Subject Three, Soybean Management and Harvesting, Subject Four, Soybean Production, and Subject Five, Soybean Machinery. Percents of total agent days planned and expended, then, on the weak soybean subjects and related practices showed decreases or no appreciable increases between Fiscal Years 1972 and 1975. Numbers of agent days planned increased for all districts for a state overall increase of more than two agent years (i.e., 550 agent days planned). Also, there was an increase for all subjects in number of agent days planned between FY 1972 and FY 1975. In days expended between FY\u27s 1972 and 1975, all subjects showed increases in numbers of days spent excepting Subjects One and Three. A large decrease was noted in total contacts made by Agents with soybean producers between FY\u27s 1972 and 1975, especially on Subjects One and Two. Of Extension methods studied. Individual Contacts showed the greatest increase in agent days used, 356, and in contacts made, 6,046. The largest number of these, 141 days and 2,193 contacts, was reported for teaching Subject Two information. The largest decreases in numbers of contacts reported were in Mass Media, 8,817, and Planning and Prep-aration, 1,354. It was implied that factors other than the 1972 Tennessee Soy-bean Production Survey appeared to have influenced agent time planned and expended and contacts made by agents in the districts. Recommenda-tions were included

Combining Strategies for Improved Outcomes of Social Interaction Skills in Children with Autism in Occupational Therapy

Background: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental condition that often presents with struggles in behavioral problems arising from sensory processing abnormalities, emotional dysregulation, self-stimulatory behavior, and anxiety, negatively impacting social interaction skills and limit the ability to engage with peers, productivity in school, and participating in daily routines (Wood, et al, 2009). Sensory integration therapy (SIT), often used in OT with clients with ASD, focuses on neurological processing of sensory information and helps clients modulate sensory responses (Khodabaskhshi, Abedi & Malekpour, 2014). This approach differs greatly from another commonly-used strategy focused on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Cognitive-based approaches used in OT seek to promote conceptual development through the simulation of different situations and other such structural training

Kelly Katzik and David Allen Wehr in a Faculty Recital

This is the program for the faculty recital featuring flautist Kelly Kazik and artist-in-residence David Allen Wehr, who played piano. This recital took place on February 22, 2001, in the W. Frances McBeth Recital Hall

Simple Sprinkler Performance Testing for Kane County

This fact sheet describes how to perform a site inspection and a sprinkler test so you can irrigate your landscape more efficiently, and provides an irigation schedule for Kane County